DAVIS, CALIFORNIA—A recent study of crumbled bits of bone tools in museum collections suggests that Neanderthals chose the rib bones of animals from the cattle family, such as bison and aurochs, to make lissoirs, a type of tool used to work animal hides into usable leather, according to a UPI report. Naomi Martisius and her colleagues at the University of California, Davis, analyzed tiny fragments of the well-worn tools with ZooMS, or zooarchaeology by mass spectometery, to identify collagen proteins in the bone. Martisius said cattle have larger, more rigid ribs than deer, which are more commonly found as food waste at Neanderthal archaeological sites, and would have therefore made better scraping tools. Neanderthals are likely to have kept favored lissoirs for a long time, she added. For more, go to "Neanderthal Tool Time."
